Time Hopper
by chuckolacola
Summary: Kylie Koopa, reporter extraordinaire, gets stuck thirty years in the future. She teams up with local boy Kooper to get back home, but that may be more difficult than they planned. Humanized characters. Kooper/Kylie.


**bean:** Hullo folks! I'm trying my hand at a mario fic. The only thing I think I need to warn you about is that the characters here are **humanized, **instead of being koopas and goombas, etc. Please enjoy!

**Plot:** Kylie Koopa gets herself stuck in the future, and teams up with local boy Kooper and his friends to find her way back home. The two quickly become close friends, and Kylie starts to question which time period she really belongs in.

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**Chapter 1- Flickering Lights**

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The streetlights were flickering.

They had been like this all night, and Kooper's curiosity had finally gotten the best of him. He wrapped his neck in his scarf, threw on his jacket, and stepped into the thickly falling snow. It was winter, and there were sometimes power outages, but the lights in the houses up and down the street were fine, including his own. It was the streetlights, just the streetlights, all of them in succession like meaningless morse code.

There was a girl in a newsboy cap standing across the street. He had never seen her before, and Koopa Village was a fairly small town, so he knew she wasn't local. She was staring at something in her hand as if it had sorely offended her, and shivering.

Before doing anything else, Kooper went inside and fetched his extra jacket. She was shivering, after all, and he couldn't just leave her to freeze out there in the middle of the night.

"Excuse me, miss?" He called from across the street, hoping not to startle her.

She looked up. She was a bit pale, blond, and very pretty. Prettier than any of the other girls he knew in town, at least, not counting Bombette, who he would never insult in fear of his life.

"Who are you?" She asked, and then, "Where am I? When am I? Hurry up and answer!"

Kooper mouthed helplessly, but seeing as she was still shivering, he walked calmly across the street and held his old track jacket out to her.

"My name is Kooper Koopa. I'm sixteen and I live in the house I just walked out of. You're in Koopa Village, just off Pleasant Path in the Mushroom Kingdom, which puts us east of Toad Town, though I don't know if you needed quite that much information. And, uh, it's 2013."

The girl looked at him, bewildered. "I didn't expect you to be such a good source." she said, "My name is Kylie. I'm...you won't believe it, but I'm sort of a time traveler. Or I was, before my Time Hopper broke on me. That damn E. Gadd...!"

Kooper mouthed silently for a moment, trying to grasp what Kylie had just said. Then, just as he was about to finally speak, the door to his house opened and his mother marched out onto the front step in her nightrobe, arms crossed to shield herself from the cold.

"Kooper! I don't know what you're doing, hon, but bring that girl inside if you're going to talk to her, and offer her some tea! You'll both freeze to death!"

Inside, Kooper's mother made them a pot of tea before shuffling back to bed, completely unfazed by her son marching out to offer a freezing stranger a jacket in the middle of the night. Kooper wasn't surprised- he had always taken after her.

"So. Time travel." he said plainly.

"No, I came by bus." Kylie deadpanned, "Yes, time travel. I can't lie about something that crazy, now can I?"

Kooper grinned. She was snippy, but she was funny. He liked her already. "Okay, I'll bite. I've seen some crazy stuff myself, so I can believe it, especially if Elvin Gadd was involved."

Kylie sighed. "I'm a journalist, so I'm good at sniffing out the truth in stuff. E. Gadd asked for my help with something- can't tell you what- and it involved some time hopping. Unfortunately, his stupid machine broke and now I can't get back where I belong."

Kooper nodded. "Well, I think the obvious solution is to find the E. Gadd of this time period and get him to fix your Time Hoppy thing, right?"

Kylie nodded.

"Well, I can help you with that, thought I don't know where his lab is personally. I know a guy who does, though, and tomorrow we can go see him. You up for that?"

"Tomorrow?" Kylie asked, sounding disappointed.

"Give me a break." Kooper whined, "It's the middle of the night on a Monday. You can wait until morning. I'll bring out the extra covers and you can sleep on our couch. It's not even lumpy."

Kylie looked Kooper over. He was average height for a koopa, with the usual blonde hair, in a shaggy mop, a bandage on one cheek, a big nose, and dark blue eyes. There was a red kerchief around his neck, but he was otherwise unspectacular in looks. He seemed like a normal boy on the outside, but...

His expression is hardened, somehow. She thought.

"Fine. Tomorrow. Bright and early!" Kylie said.

"I'll ask mom to cook us breakfast." Kooper said.

Kooper pulled out his old coverlet, the one with the space aliens on it. It was a little embarrassing to be letting a girl near his own age (sort of, anyway) use it now, but it would have to do, as the usual guest covers were now the covers of his bob-omb roommates. he also grabbed the pillowcases and his extra pillow and set them all neatly on the couch, unsure how Kylie would normally make her sleeping space up.

"Listen, uh..." he started as Kylie walked in, changed into the spare pajamas he had lent her, "This is kind of weird, so don't get mad if I freak out on you at some point, okay?"

Kylie nodded.

"I mean, it's time travel. I kind of did this on impulse, and I don't think either of us knows what we're getting into. So, uh...just until you get home...and I don't know if I really need to tell you this..."

"What, Koopa?"

"Don't do anything reckless."

Kylie laughed. That did sound like the kind of warning her friends back in the past would usually give her. Fair enough, she thought. She nodded and grabbed the blanket, settling in and watching as Kooper trudged up the stairs to his own room.

He was no gentleman, it seemed, not even bidding her goodnight, but he seemed like a nice guy. Kylie decided that this time, she would play it safe and follow Kooper's lead. Just until she got the Time Hopper fixed and got home. Then she would be her usual self all over again.

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**End chapter**

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**bean:** Thanks for reading! All concrit and reviews are appreciated. If I made any big mistakes, let me know. I'm already working on the next chapter, so it should be out soon!


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